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Orlanth wrote:Anyone noticed that the box cover for the Red Blok force includes a new Medfium ** strider with two AT cannon. About time.

Its not gonna happen, the Army book has the same drawing....

the box clearly say it is UROD a Hetman, so it is AT cannon and rocket laucher.

Never say never...

Duncan_Idaho wrote:Never say never...

Ha, I never say never... 2 AT would be FANTASTORGASMIC but also a Ussar with missiles and AT cannon or 2 missiles----

I love AT-43! their weapon switching options are so nicely built into their models.

no need to magnetize , no need for constant army book change! Just card change at most!


Such a new yet smart company!
not to mention amazing models, poseable , and
almost no mold lines!

LunaHound wrote:I love AT-43! their weapon switching options are so nicely built into their models.

no need to magnetize , no need for constant army book change! Just card change at most!


Such a new yet smart company!
not to mention amazing models, poseable , and
almost no mold lines!

I agree with you.... it is a very intelligent system and minis

Wolfen wrote:
I agree with you.... it is a very intelligent system and minis

Now if I could only get Steel Trooper attachment boxes I'd have some useful ** infantry.

The problem with these army boxes is that it's been confirmed by Rackham Entertainment reps that the paint jobs are going to be of lesser-quality than the already-lackluster unit box releases.

They will have fewer paint aps, less weathering and shading, and the vehicles will not have any of the decals/transfers that made their regular unit box vehicles so cool IMHO.

I mean, you get what you pay for...$61 shipped from The War Store is an insanely-good deal, but I get the feeling that this is a "last ditch" shot to save AT-43 if they're dropping their already-low painting standards.

I'm not liking how quiet RE is being about this change in the painting standards. I was going to purchase a Red Blok box until I heard about this, and then I changed my mind. Sure the Dotch Yaga is in the right colors, but the rest of the paint job is worse than everything else in my RB army?

I'm going to have to do repaints to make the units blend in with my existing units? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of pre-paints?

I think you asre being harsh, all the minis I have seen have been rather good, you need to touch up where the job is less than stellar but that is that.

Dont think of it as repainting but completing the minis, a much smaller job.

Orlanth wrote:I think you asre being harsh, all the minis I have seen have been rather good, you need to touch up where the job is less than stellar but that is that.

Dont think of it as repainting but completing the minis, a much smaller job.

Nono, he meant the upcomming army boxes . Basically the prices are cheaper due to lesser quality painting ( well packaging helps alittle )

The problem with these army boxes is that it's been confirmed by Rackham Entertainment reps that the paint jobs are going to be of lesser-quality than the already-lackluster unit box releases.

They will have fewer paint aps, less weathering and shading, and the vehicles will not have any of the decals/transfers that made their regular unit box vehicles so cool IMHO.

I mean, you get what you pay for...$61 shipped from The War Store is an insanely-good deal, but I get the feeling that this is a "last ditch" shot to save AT-43 if they're dropping their already-low painting standards.

I'm not liking how quiet RE is being about this change in the painting standards. I was going to purchase a Red Blok box until I heard about this, and then I changed my mind. Sure the Dotch Yaga is in the right colors, but the rest of the paint job is worse than everything else in my RB army?

I'm going to have to do repaints to make the units blend in with my existing units? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of pre-paints?

Painting is basic with the boxes, but still miles away from what we usual get to see on gaming tables. Besides, some weathering and inking is a matter of minutes. I don´t see where this is a last ditch effort. Else GW's introductory boxes would also be a last dicht effort.

To call the painting "basic" is to put the best possible light on it. Faces on the unit box releases are a disaster at best, per the AT-43 review I am about to post, and the Army Box toys are going to be worse.

The AT-43 toys will be miles away from the actual models you usually see on gaming tables if you don't play tabletop wargames with the vast majority of wargamers who actually paint their models, this is true...but if you put a minimum amount of time and effort into 40K models, just a basecoat, inking, and drybrush, you will come up with results equal or superior to what the "professionally pre-painted" AT-43 toys will give you.

The fact that you have to do touch-ups on AT-43 toys to get something which isn't wonky speaks volumes on the value of playing a pre-paints game whose point is not to have to paint anything - but this is the price you pay for a pre-paints game. You trade off getting toys instead of models for the convenience of not having to do any work to play the game.

For the target audience of would-be tabletop wargamers who are attracted to AT-43 specifically for the escape from modeling, weathering and and inking are not going to be a matter of minutes because these people don't have the skills to do either of these things. The modelers who play AT-43 and are willing to do touch-ups and repaints aren't the target audience. The target audience is going to have sub-par toys and when they walk into a FLGS to find an opponent, and are faced with minimum-effort 40K models which look gorgeous comparatively...

Americans, by and large, don't care for "lesser-than."

The Army Boxes are a last ditch effort because Rackham Entertainment is practically giving them away. They're probably taking a hit on the cost although they would likely not admit it, and they're accepting a lesser paint quality from their often already very lackluster standards in order to get the army boxes out there.

I think this belies a little desperation, quite frankly. I would guess that the venture capital firm which bought out the old Rackham when it declared bankruptcy in October of 2008 wanted to turn the quickest profit possible, hence the army boxes. Remember, there are actual businesspeople calling the shots over at RE now, and all they care about is profits.

If these Army Boxes fail to expand the player base - the existing base wasn't large enough to support the old company, they certainly aren't going to be large enough to support expanded efforts - then the venture capitalists who bought out Rackham may decide just to cut their losses.

Basically, these Army Boxes are a rolling of the dice which may or may not have come too late.

To compare these Army Boxes to 40K starter kits is ridiculous. GW is the most established, successful gaming company in the world. They can afford to take hits on starter kits, and a percentage of the people who purchase them begin actually modeling and painting and then have emotionally bought into the hobby, and they're hooked. GW are slick businesspeople with multimedia presence and an uncanny ability to generate new gamers, with a HUGE gaming base such that you can get a game of 40K in pretty much anywhere tabletop wargames are played.

To even try to put Rackham Entertainment and GW anywhere in the same league, or even to try to compare RE with Battlefront games, just boggles the mind.

If they are so desperate to expand the player base ,
when are they comming out with UNA army box!

Any pics of these badly painted ones?

There are pics, but not for public distribution. I sincerely hope that the pictures of the toys in the pics are not the actual toys being released, because you could already tell from the infantry toys just what a step down it was, even at a distance of about six or seven feet.

The "five foot rule" is supposed to be the great equalizer in tabletop wargaming...not a distance at which inferior quality is already apparent.

No offence, but if i may ask something thats troubling me ><

If you are close with the devs , shouldnt you be supporting them abit instead of saying all these things that are scarying new players away? >.>

If you arnt close.... PICS PICS PICS!


*edit or show me pic in private message! promise i will delete it after seeing it!

Cairnuis;My god man I really wish you would sell your toys and zip it! You truly have a talent at posting in a very long and annoying manner were ever you go!

LunaHound wrote:No offence, but if i may ask something thats troubling me ><

If you are close with the devs , shouldnt you be supporting them abit instead of saying all these things that are scarying new players away? >.>

If you arnt close.... PICS PICS PICS!


*edit or show me pic in private message! promise i will delete it after seeing it!

No, I'm not close to the devs...but have seen pictures of the packing layout of the new army boxes, and was even treated to a one-step-removed-from-final-edit copy of the upcoming Cogs army book.

I'm providing some objective information about AT-43 because there is very little out there to be found. If you go on the AT-43 forums you mostly get a fan's perspective on the game. Otherwise, it's very difficult to get any up-to-date information on AT-43 and objective reviews of the gameplay which you can readily find with easy Google searches, past some reviews of the Op Damocles set when it first came out which don't reflect the reality of current gameplay, are nonexistent.

Go read my review of the game. It is honest and fair, and absolutely required reading for anyone considering buying into AT-43. Know what you're purchasing - and if it sounds good to you, then by all means jump right in! It's cheap as heck right now...

Unbiased as usual Cairn, AHAHAQHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I am sorry to write this, but somewhere it has to stop.

Cairnius, as a Sentinel you are supposed to support the game and when you became one you agreed to go by the rules.

At the moment you are breaking every rule in the book.

The rules you are supossed to follow are no different from what every other company expects from its support team members.

I leave it to the users of this thread how much trust they put into the comments of someone who with full intent does the opposite of what he agreed to do.

As I said in my Objective Review of AT-43 post, I'm no longer a Sentinel. I haven't been for two days, now, since I gave official notice that I was relinquishing the post. The same lackluster attention Rackham Entertainment pays to their rules design seems to apply to their administration of their official forums...

I joined the Sentinel program to get the inside scoop on the game, got what I wanted, and left like any good gamer doing his research should and would. Once I made up my mind, I had no more use for the program.

Good games sell themselves and demand loyalty. Lackluster games become flashes in the pan of brief interest and then fade away, which is what's happening to AT-43 gameplay across the country. It's there for a while, people lose interest, it's gone. Just like it did for me and the two other members of my wargaming club who bought armies two months ago and have already relegated AT-43 to their storage units in lieu of playing 40K and prepping Flames of War armies.

Go read my review. It says just about everything which needs to be said, and which you cannot find anywhere else because not many people are even talking about the game seriously anymore.

Sorry, you are not that easily off the hook.

Your behaviour is an absolute shame to every supporter who ever supported a game.

Your review is far from objective and rather biased and to top it you break rules that you agreed to follow.

I joined the Sentinel program to get the inside scoop on the game, got what I wanted, and left like any good gamer doing his research should and would. Once I made up my mind, I had no more use for the program.

I really can't find words to describe the way I feel reading this. It´s really sad.

Corporate loyalty is one thing, but from what I hear Sentinels are unpaid volunteers, to go from supporting to 'bad mouthing' a company in two days sounds a bit much; agreed - and it makes me wonder if there isnt a personal issue behind Cairnius' words. However this is an independant forum and if someone wants to knock a game system or call its desgners cretins he would be in good company. i for one would be a total hypocrite to shout Caitnius down after what I have been on record to say about what I think of GW studio designers. I havent really started yet and already seen some flaws with At-43, and wont be slow to comment on them if i feel like it. Then I do have an eye for game mechanics and can spot such things early anyway, and over all what I see of this game is good.

Bottom line Rackham are trying a good line at a good time, and have some quality product. They also have issues, and I am not talking about the comapny name or rep but issues with At-43 availability marketing and pricing, and even with some rules. But I am not offput by this, it is obvious to me at least that there is a neat little gem here and now is the time to get in.

I am sad here too, mainly because outside of this window I would not be here with AT-43 it is just completely out of my price band as a game. Now with three large armies planned I coulafford a full rpice unit or two once in a while if needs be, especially if my forces get bolstered by loss leader Army Boxes. However despite all this i consider this game to have a far better ruleset than 40K and can easily see myself playing far more of this than I play any other tabletop miniature game. Not that I am ever likely to give up 40K or Warmachine just for this.

Well i guess that sort of shows the kind of character a person is and their values...

But that aside no matter what happens to AT-43 it doesnt matter for me, I love the minis!
The only thing that would bother me is if they did a 95% off sale lol ( after my orders)

Anyways.... Orlanth can you tell me abit about what the step was from paying miniature market?
They replied:

As far as repackaging you next order, yes we do that for several of our International customers a
nd we can for you also. But, we do have a labor charge of $.50-$1 per box set. I don't have an estimate on how much it will save.

If you want us to repackage on you next order, please indicate in the customer notes section that you want us to break down
the packaging to save on shipping costs. I will notify you once we process the order how much the surcharge for labor was,
so you know how much your credit card will be charged or how much we need you to send additional through PayPal.

I dont understand , say the website automatically charge me the $60 shipping fee , and they'll charge me the repackage fee again through paypal?

Then where in the steps listed do they refund the actual saved shipping amount from repackaging?

Ok, first thing to learn here. I got EXACTLY the same wording in the email reply to me, so the company has a macro that they insert in every reply where this is mentioned. Thus you are tapping into a standard procedure for them.

Now how irt actuially works is anyones guess, I wont add to that. This is how I intend to try.

1. Fill 'my shopping cart'.

2. Press update totals.
You cannot press Estimate Shipping as you have no Zip code.

3. Mouse select/Copy/paste your shopping list into an email. Here is a sample with random junk in it:

Product Qty. Price Total

War at Sea Flank Speed Booster Pack (Preorder)

$9.75 $ 9.75

Infinity Djanbazan Tactical Group (HMG) (1)

$8.93 $ 8.93

Star Trek 2nd CCG Second Edition Combo Box

$15.00 $ 15.00
Sub Total $ 33.68


Zip Code:


4. In the rest of the email ask them how to order, its best to do so with the order shown in the email, as they will be more inclined to help with an event than a theory. They might input the order for you onto their computers and give you an email invoice, they might input the order and tell you how much they want to charge you etc. You will have to pay that by Paypal. Alternately ask of you should do this:

5. If they do the latter probably what they will ask you to do is to put Minitures Market down as the recipient of the shipping address, remember the billing address and shipping address can be different. Write in the notes as asked that you want depackaging and a fresh shipping quote to the billing address. This way they bill you through the comopany system for ther goods and through Paypal for the shipping and depackaging. I cannot see any other way to do what they ask i.e. order and include notes without having to pay up front the entire fully packaged shipping costs. This is the only way your instructions tally with how their ordering system works. I would NOT try this without first talking to the company.

I would prefer to send them the shopping list in an email (point4), say you cannot complete the order without initiating full billing and leqave it to them to invoice you through your email. If you look at the FAQ you will see this bottom of the six bullet points lists:

* How much is international shipping?
Our international shipping is based on the total weight of your order. You will need you to fill up your shopping cart on our website and proceed to checkout for a real time shipping quote. We use the United States Postal Service (usps.com) for all of our international shipping. The two options we offer is International First Class Mail (available for orders under 3 lbs) and Priority International Mail (available on all international orders).


Interesting, so for a standard order, pay for it if the 'real time shipping quote' is incorrect you will be invoiced for ther reminder. In companyspeak also implies that if the quote was too high they likely wont. The fact that they want to bill you handling while recalculating shipping does not bode well either, you need to get the estimated shipping really slashed to get any headway so any billing estimater should be suitably low, after all the minis are plastc packed in large amounts of plastic and cardboard so on weight alone your shipping would be much lower, also more importantly while MM charge you besed on weight shipping actually works on volume, especially when you try to fit Initiation sets into USPS standard size boxes.

Take a look at this:

http://shop.usps.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10152&storeId=10001&categoryId=13356&productId=11697&langId=-1&WT.ac=11697

These are the standard USPS boxes, you estimate how many of these will your depackaged minis and books, remember the books fill, note how there is a set shipping cost attached to the box. Do you own estimation and then add $1 per boxset. This should give you a rough indication of how much shipping you will be needing to pay. Of course insurance adds to that but you have a quote for packaging already.

I have 0 idea how big a democle box is. But from the picture i estimate , each of that Box can only hold 3-4 democle sets. This will make perfect sense of adding 3 sets will bump it up to $60 ( sounds like Box #2 )

I have emailed them with the question and have not received any answer. Its friday ( too late for shipping anyways i think ) So i'll wait till monday to see if they have responded.

If nothing is taken care of on monday , I will copy paste the full order including the service fee for repacking the 3 demo sets and ask them to send a total bill?

The postal code doesnt effect canadian customers , i have purchased them twice before, and the weight seem to match the shipping fee fairly and i can say perfectly.
So that part i trust them 100%

Arnt you worried at all about them shipped without the protective casings? The limbs and spikes on the Therian might run into trouble ><

Normally i would be happy to just match the size and get a perfect order with perfect fit. ( the pic is $33 shipping ) But this time i cant.

Well, I didn't think I'd sign up to Dakka for that kind of reason. Still, it's as good as any time to, so...

Cairnius wrote:I joined the Sentinel program to get the inside scoop on the game, got what I wanted, and left like any good gamer doing his research should and would. Once I made up my mind, I had no more use for the program.

You, good sir, are a slick devil. That's a truly machiavellian plan

Good games sell themselves and demand loyalty.

A bold claim, considering the number of games that have been released in the past 30 years and then gone into limbo. I'd wager there were more good games than just W40K and Warhammer in the lot, and yet, they're the only ones that can claim even just 10 years of age. Not that it really matters on this subject anyway. Is everything perfect with AT-43? Probably not, or Rackham wouldn't have met with the problems they've had in recent months. Do we think it is ? Nossir, that's the whole reason changes are being brought to the game. Pricing, and the perceived cost of entering the game, has been reported consistantly as a problem, hence the concept of army boxes. Does that make the game bad? Certainly not. It did, for that matter, sell pretty well in the US for some time, and more than "two or three months" if I might add, before the release plan derailed and hurt general interest bad. Can it please everyone ? No. Neither can W40k or Flames of war, for that matter. Doesn't make them bad games either

Go read my review. It says just about everything which needs to be said,

Woah, I take it back, now that's a bold claim I certainly wouldn't call it comprehensive, nor objective or unbiased for that matter. It's a pretty good summary of "why I liked W40k and not AT-43", but as for objective, it's as objective as anything on the web that claims to be, which is not much. Doesn't mean it's uninteresting (well except for all the patronizing of course), there certainly are people out there that will feel like you and learn something from it. Everyone is perfectly entitled to their own opinions after all

The limbs and spikes on the Therian might run into trouble

Don´t worry about the spikes on the infantry, miniatures are made of slightly soft plastic that allows some bending. Once even someone marched accidently over a Storm Golem and all we had to do was bending him back under some hot water. Also, if parts are slightly bend out of shape, just hold the minature under hot water, bend it into position, hold it and immediately put it into cold water. Repeat if necessary.

It was a really good idea using this kind of plastic. Especially when I recall the horror of transporting Dark Eldar.

Well said Orlanth.

Edit: wow, how did my post end up so far from reply at 2009/05/15 01:59:55?

LunaHound wrote:

Ok for a starrt that is not an USPS box. The box dimensions for set price shipping are 11"x8.5"x5.5". The boc you picture is much larger.

Next the packaging is so bloat you could stuff twelve tac arms in bubble wrap in one tac arm box. I think you would be able to fit more than that with impunity. Even if you retained some packaging ,i.e. cut out the trio of miniatures in their plastic sheath and stacked the minimalised packing you will still save two thirds of the volume minimum.

@ Orlanth , i know thats not UPS box, it has Rhkham logo stamped on it >.< just saying they sent it using that.

Btw, it used to be MM will tell us if they'll receive new re stocks for AT-43 ( even the clearance items )

They havnt done that for awhile, does that mean after this batch is gone, no more on sale?

On the packaging front, isn't Rackham redoing their box packages so there isn't so much wasted space? That seems like a good thing for the entire fulfillment chain and environment.